The Complete Guide to Getting Real ROI From Social A WHITE PAPER BY GIGYA
This guide focuses on the different technologies and tools that businesses can leverage to generate valuable ROI from their marketing efforts. ROI - it s that elusive, encompassing term that marketers love to throw around, dissect, measure, and discuss. But what does it actually mean and how exactly is it achieved, particularly in the realm of social marketing? To help marketers better strategize their digital marketing efforts, we ve broken down the path to social ROI into a series of achievable, measurable methods. 1. Enable Social Login to boost demand gen efforts and improve site conversions 2. Collect social profile and behavior data 3. Power business applications with relevant consumer data 4. Enable meaningful social conversations 5. Increase customer loyalty with incentives This guide will discuss each method in detail, providing relevant use cases and trackable metrics to help you gauge and measure your marketing campaigns more accurately and efficiently.
Method #1 Boosting Demand Gen and Improving Conversions with Social Login The most effective way to begin measuring social ROI is by integrating social login, which acts as the first access point to a user s identity. Social login lets users authenticate and log in to your web properties using their existing social identities. Essentially, social login is the gateway to social ROI -- it orchestrates data capture in a permission-based, streamlined manner. Why Social Login? Not only is social login necessary for achieving ROI, it s also proven to increase site conversions. +67% Page Views Socially logged in consumers view 67% more pages. +56% More Time Socially logged in consumers spend 56% more time on site. (Source: Social Login Infographic) We examined thousands of websites and mobile applications offering social login and discovered that social login increases user acquisition by an average of 33 percent. Moreover, socially logged in users view 66.7 percent more pages and spend 56 percent more time on average interacting with the site. Social Login for Streamlined Demand Gen Efforts As many marketers struggle to capture their site visitors data in a useful, valuable manner, social login eliminates the need for expensive, often ineffective lead capture methods such as site retargeting.
By eliminating the pain points of site registration such as having to fill out tedious forms and remember new login credentials, social login aids in demand generation efforts as it breaks down the roadblocks to consumer data, allowing businesses to start building authentic relationships with their consumers quickly and easily. 3 Advantages of Social Login 1. Streamlined Registration Social login eliminates the need for traditional registration forms, which can be tedious for the user to fill out and difficult for businesses to maintain. With social login, users simply authenticate their existing online identities with a few clicks, granting businesses access to their social profiles in a secure, permission-based way. 2. Decreased Password Fatigue Remembering multiple passwords isn t fun or easy for anyone. Social login connects users existing social profiles to your website s registration dialog so that your users don t have to create a new username and password exclusively for your site. 3. Social Connectivity Not only are modern users social, but they also love to interact and share across their networks. Social login enables your socially logged in users to share content immediately without ever leaving your site or app. Use Case: Forbes Increases Registration Conversions Forbes, one of the most influential sources of business and technology news on the web, boosted its registrations and conversions by integrating a connected consumer management suite across its web properties.
Specifically, the news publication implemented social login for an improved registration and sign-in experience, along with a series of social plugins to facilitate and foster online engagement. Results Forbes experienced a significant increase in newly registered users on its site, with over half of its new user base choosing to register for the site through social login. What You Should be Measuring Social login improves registration conversions, provides businesses with relevant, accurate data on their users, and helps decrease forgotten password issues. When considering ROI, it s important to measure each of these value adds to figure out social login s true impact: Increase in registrations How much have site registration numbers increased since implementing social login?
Value of a registered user To determine the value of a registered user, you ll want to examine the estimated return for new user registrations. Take the following example: An ecommerce site registers 10,000 users a month. Of these registrations, 500 users go on to make purchases on the site over the span of a year. If each purchaser s average shopping cart conversion is $75, then the value per registered user is $3.75. What is the value per registered user for your business? Decrease in forgotten password help desk issues When users log in socially, they save themselves from having to remember another username and password combination; your business, in turn, avoids the hassle of dealing with lost password recovery issues. What is the decrease in support costs since implementing social login? Formula for Social Login ROI = SOCIAL LOGIN ROI Increase in registrations with Social Login Value per registered user* + Savings from reduced forgotten password support costs
Method #2 Understanding Customers Through Social Profile and Behavior Data As more and more businesses are discovering, true customer understanding begins with social data. According to a recent survey sample of 2,200 marketers around the world, 71% of marketers plan to implement big data analytics into their marketing strategies within the next two years. 71% of marketers plan to implement big data analytics into their marketing strategies within the next two years. (Source: Teradata Data-Driven Marketing Survey 2013) Having access to users social profiles and behavior data enables businesses to better tailor their marketing efforts and online experiences for increased relevancy. For instance, a user who logs in with his Facebook account grants your business access to his profile information, which can include his interests, social graph, location, and more. You can then use this data to tailor your marketing campaigns and online experience to that individual user.
Collecting Data the Right Way: Transparency and Permission Data collection can be a touchy subject, particularly when consumers feel left in the dark about exactly what data is being collected and how their data is being used by businesses. To help consumers feel more at ease about granting access to their personal information, we advise businesses to ask for data in a transparent, permission-based way. By first prompting users to grant you access to their data and clearly communicating exactly what data points you ll be collecting and how you plan to use this data, you assure your customers that their data is safe in your hands. What You Should be Measuring The main purpose of collecting user data is to gain a better understanding of the consumers that identify the most with your brand. When evaluating the ROI of this, you ll need to pinpoint the most relevant social data fields and track the average number of data points from each data field. We ll explain this in greater detail below:
Relevant social data points Before you ask users for their data, it s important to figure out which data points are most relevant to your marketing strategy. For instance, a retailer that wants to offer tailored promotions on users birthdays will likely be interested in their customers interests, shopping histories, and birthdates. What types of user information will make the greatest impact on your marketing efforts? Average number of data points Each data field offers a different number of data points. For example, Facebook users often list multiple items in the interests field of their profiles, while a more straightforward data field such as email can only garner one or two entries. How many data points does your business plan to collect? For a full list of available data fields across each social network, click here. Formula for Data Collection ROI ( ) = SOCIAL DATA ROI (Average number of data points collected per user Average value of data point) Number of socially connected users
Method #3 Powering Business Applications with Relevant Consumer Data As important as it is to understand users in deeper ways by collecting and analyzing their social data, businesses wanting to establish lasting relationships with customers need to effectively utilize this data to boost customer engagement and drive conversions. 78% of marketers feel the need to become more data-driven, but only 33% are consistently and strategically leveraging consumer data in their marketing efforts. (Source: Global Teradata Survey) To start acting on your social data, you ll want to port it into marketing platforms such as email marketing software, recommendation engines, CRMs, ecommerce platforms, ad serving platforms, DMPs, and more. Integrating marketing platforms with first-party user data leads to personalized marketing efforts and more meaningful user experiences. The panel to the right outlines some ways that social data can integrate with third-party platforms to accomplish user engagement and marketing goals. Third-Party Marketing Platforms that Work with Social Data 1. Email marketing services can use social data to personalize email marketing campaigns. Examples: MailChimp, Responsys, ExactTarget 2. Advertising services can use social data to curate and display tailored ads to site viewers. Examples: Google DoubleClick, Lotame, ADTECH 3. Recommendation engines can use social data to provide unique content and product recommendations to users. Examples: RichRelevance, Certona, MyBuys 4. Web analytics can integrate with social data to provide a more comprehensive view of users site activity and engagement. Examples: Google Analytics, Omniture, KISSmetrics 5. Data management platforms can turn social data into measurable, actionable insights. Examples: Bluekai, Adobe AudienceManager, Core Audience
Example Use Case Virgin America Celebrates Customers Birthdays Virgin America creates authentic connections with its customers by collecting data on their users favorite teams, birthdays, and full names. It then ports this user data into its existing email marketing platforms and configures its email client to automatically send a personalized promotional message to customers on their birthdays.
In the example above, Virgin America s email displays a personalized birthday message along with a 15% birthday discount code. By reaching out to customers with a relevant birthday greeting, Virgin America creates tailored user experiences while encouraging customers to purchase a flight through its online booking system. What You Should be Measuring When data is put to action, it s crucial to track its progress of your campaigns by looking at conversions. Specifically, your business should consider the following metrics: Increase in conversions application performance After porting your data into the appropriate marketing platforms, your business needs to measure the conversions generated by these data-fueled marketing campaigns. How much have your conversions increased since incorporating consumer social data? Increase in conversion value from application performance Data-driven conversions are likely to bring more value to your business, as they represent more targeted, relevant opportunities for your customers. What is the increase in conversion value (e.g. CPMs or average order value) of a databacked marketing strategy? Formula for Social Data ROI = SOCIAL DATA ROI Increase in conversions Increase in conversion value
Method #4 How Consumer Engagement Leads to More Revenue As businesses use social login to authenticate and connect with their consumers, the next step is to encourage continuous engagement and user-generated content by integrating social plugins that facilitate consumer-led conversations across your web properties and mobile apps. Social Plugins such as Ratings & Reviews, Comments and Reactions, Activity Feeds, and more, work together to encourage more on-site and in-app engagement for increased user loyalty. To help you better grasp the direct impact of social plugins, we ll go over some benefits below: Shorter potential path to purchase: According to a survey by Dimensional Research, 90 percent of respondents claimed that positive online reviews directly influenced buying decisions. In this vein, allowing users to rate and review products can help effectively reduce the path to purchase for potential customers. Increased sense of community among users: Social consumers love to interact online, whether by sharing and commenting on content or chatting directly with other visitors. By providing a simple, quick way for users to interact with one another across
your business s web properties, you can nurture a sense of community among your user base while encouraging deeper engagement. Increased SEO ranking: Adding more user-generated content to your site through plugins like comments and reviews helps your business optimize for search. In addition, your business can analyze the conversations on your web properties for key words and phrases to integrate into your long-tail keyword strategy. Referral traffic from social channels: Share plugins enable seamless, quick sharing of site content to users social networks, which results in more referral traffic back to your web properties. As businesses continue to enable social sharing, we ve found that customers respond positively: our research shows that 22 percent of all comments and reviews are shared to social networks. What You Should Be Measuring Measuring user engagement calls for a look at referral traffic and conversion numbers and value. Broken down, these metrics include: Increase in SEO traffic As we discussed earlier, user-generated content helps boost SEO. How much has SEO traffic increased since implementing social plugins? Increase in social referral traffic Social plugins such as Share buttons help boost traffic from social networks. What is the increase in social referral traffic?
Visit to conversion Referral traffic is valuable but often times difficult tot measure in monetary terms. When it comes to real returns, you want to look at conversions. How many of your site visits lead to actual conversions? Value of conversions Conversions should lead to direct revenue, such as a customer completing a purchase on your site or clicking on an ad. What is the value of each conversion? Formula for Social Engagement ROI [( ) ] = SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT ROI [(Increase in SEO traffic + Increase in social referral traffic) Visit to conversion] Value of conversion
Method #5 Increasing Customer Loyalty with Incentives As users interact more with your web properties, the ultimate goal is to encourage deeper, prolonged engagement. As your business formulates its customer retention strategy, you may consider developing a rewards program and implementing a gamification platform to keep customers engaged in the long term. Rewards programs, which are often times integrated into gamification platforms, allow businesses to incentivize users by offering virtual or physical goods to users who perform valuable site actions. Incentives promote repeat site visits and generate valuable conversions, which can translate to direct returns. Incentives promote repeat site visits and generate valuable conversions, which can translate to direct returns. Another way to promote customer loyalty is to encourage some friendly competition across your web properties. Gamification enables businesses to reward customers with points, badges, and other prizes for completing specific site actions. Users can level up and see how they stack up against other users, which fosters a sense of community among your user base.
Use Case: Capcom Nurtures a Loyal Customer Base with Gamification Video game retailer Capcom drove engagement and awareness to the re-launch of one of its biggest franchises, Devil May Cry (DmC), by creating a connected, holistic experience between its mobile app and console game. For a seamless, permission-based sign-in process, Capcom integrated social login to get its users started with the app quickly. To drive friendly competition and encourage more interaction with the app, Capcom gamified its mobile experience, creating personal missions for users to complete in exchange for virtual rewards. The screenshots below capture Capcom s socially-powered, gamified mobile experience: Results: After launching its mobile app, Capcom saw thousands of daily social logins, with users continuing to engage with the app s game elements, logging in an average of 6.1 times. The retailer also surpassed 1 million in game sales in its first month of launching the app.
What You Should be Measuring Measuring loyalty calls for an examination of your various user incentives and their resulting conversions. More specifically, you ll want to look at the following metrics: Value of incentivized actions Each time you offer incentives to your users for performing valuable actions, your business derives value from these performed actions. What is the value of these incentivized actions? Increase in valuable actions Incentives should encourage valuable behavior. What increase have you seen in the instances of users completing valuable actions across your web properties? Increase in repeat conversions Conversions look different for every business depending on goals. Based on your unique goals, what is the increase in conversions? Increase in value of conversions Incentives lay the groundwork for valuable conversions to happen more frequently. What is the increase in the value of your conversions?
Formulas for Social Loyalty ROI = SOCIAL LOYALTY ROI Value of incentivized actions Increase in valuable actions = SOCIAL LOYALTY ROI Increase in repeat conversions Increase in value of conversions Social Yields Real Returns With the correct methods and technology, social ROI can be broken down into measurable, actionable steps. Businesses who effectively leverage these strategies will be able to capture and analyze their results for future improvements. The key to transitioning from simply discussing ROI to actually measuring it lies in your business s ability to responsibly collect and take action on your social data while continuing to encourage user engagement and loyalty.
About Gigya Gigya provides clients with the rich data, intelligence, and tools needed to reach consumers with the right messages, on the right platforms at the right time. Gigya drives user acquisition and engagement for 700 enterprises and reaches 1.5 billion unique users per month, ensuring that today s businesses stay relevant in the age of the connected consumer. Our technology helps marketers better achieve real social ROI. Here s how:! We offer a user-friendly, web-based dashboard so marketers can easily access, manage, and take action on their user data! We make it easy to understand and act on social media insights